Extremities
by caritivereflection
Summary: A series of drabbles about Evelyn Mercer and her boys based on the word "extremity."
1. Fingers

AN: Not dead, just busy. This is a new in-progress fic I started to facilitate some ideas I had that aren't really long enough to warrant their own fics. Also, chapter two of Pancakes is in the works, but that's not saying much since it's been in the works for... um... eleven months. Anyway, enjoy the show.

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**ex·trem·i·ty** \ik-ˈstre-mə-tē\ _n, pl_ **-ties** 1: the most remote part or point 2: a limb of the body; _esp_: a human hand or foot 3: the greatest need or danger 4: the utmost degree; _also_: a drastic or desperate measure.

Fingers

It was little things. Things no one would notice. Spare change, receipts and Bic pens, apples and granola bars from the kitchen, a penknife. Things no one would think twice about when they disappeared.

Unless they were accustomed to the sticky fingers of children who came from too little.

Jack was bored, a nervous mind tied into nervous fingers that had nothing else to do. She saw it at the dinner table, where he would twist his fingers into his napkin again and again. Doing his homework at night was a never ending series of tapping fingers and spinning pencils, papers shuffling as they were shifted for the hundredth time. Four months it had been the soundtrack of the evening, accompanying bubbling pots and the clock counting down dinner.

She thought that the stealing was just another way to keep his hands busy.

But the toothbrush was another thing entirely. A child didn't hide away what they already owned unless there was a fear that it would be taken away. Evelyn Mercer had seen it all in twenty five years of foster care, but it didn't stop the ache in her chest that every new child brought.


	2. Hands

AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

Hands

"Do you know what it means to be adopted, Jack?" She could see the controlled way his chest expanded, the boy's refusal to let the panic show now that he'd been caught. He didn't meet her eyes, his own going from the open sock drawer to latch onto the purple toothbrush she held.

He nodded his head, a quick jerk that sent his shaggy bangs over his eyes like a shield. "Something that just happens to little kids," he said. There wasn't bitterness or resentment in his tone, just a cold statement of fact.

"It's not," she said. She rose and left the toothbrush forgotten on the bed. She crossed the room to where he stood rigid as stone in the doorway and took his hands in hers. "It's a way of finding a family. For anyone."

His hands twitched in hers but he didn't pull away.

"I adopted Bobby when he was twelve. Angel was almost fourteen."

He shook his head. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you don't have to steal your own toothbrush anymore."


	3. Arms

AN: Thanks for the reviews and views! This is the last Jack-centric piece for a bit, a direct continuation of the last two. Next up is either Bobby or Angel.

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Arms

It tapered off after the papers were signed and he became a Mercer. The toothbrush stayed in the holder in the bathroom. Spare change remained where it was thrown and it was no longer a expedition every time she needed a pen.

But the busy fingers stayed until a crisp April morning when Angel snapped at the breakfast table.

"Why you always fucking fidgeting? Tap tap tap. It's annoying."

"Language!" she said, though her reminders never worked on her sons, though they normally respected her insistence on decorum at the dinner table. "And be nice to your brother."

But the damage was done and Jack spent the rest of breakfast with his hands tucked away under folded arms.

When Angel finished and they were alone, she took Jack by the arm and led him to her room, planting him on the bed and finding relief in how his shoulders relaxed. A few minutes in the closet and she found it, the battered acoustic that had been a gift from her father.

Jack looked uncertain as she held it out to him.

"Busy fingers need an outlet," she said and soon she was showing him the way right to cradle the body with his right arm and coil his fingers around the neck.

The first strum wasn't music, just a mashed together mix of off key notes and amateur technique. But the promise was there, in that sound and in the little smile that came to his lips.


	4. Feet Part I

A/N: This is the first of a 2-4 part piece on Bobby's introduction to hockey. I think that Evelyn would have, with four sons who were probably written off as 'problem children,' become very good at finding ways to direct their energy and thus render them slightly less destructive. I want to explore that with each of them (though I am kind of veering away from my original "Extremity" idea here...).

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Feet Part I

Three fistfights in school in two weeks. Three suspensions, three times Evelyn had to miss work to pick him up. Three nights without dessert or TV as he pouted in the corner pretending he wanted neither.

One warning that Bobby would be expelled if it happened again.

It was Saturday, and not only had he been denied a late bedtime on Friday, but Evelyn had, in her own late night spent with cup after cup of tea, decided that enough was enough. Bobby regarded her with a glare that could have lit a fire, but silently got ready when she woke him.

A different Bobby, one that came to her only a few months ago, would have hurled every insult he knew at her. But that boy learned in the first week that his words, as vile as he tried to make them, didn't have a lick of impact on Evelyn. She was a different creature altogether than he had ever faced, neither the inclination to snap like a rubber band pulled too tight that he was used to, nor the common indifference that he knew even better.

He didn't ask where they were going and she didn't offer, didn't explain even as his eyes grew confused as they pulled up outside of the outdoor rink, sparsely populated with a man and a handful of boys Bobby's age.

She knew Jim wouldn't deny her after finding him and his wife a little girl to call their own. _He needs direction, Jim_, was what she said on the phone. _We have practice at eight_, was all the man replied. _Can he skate?_


	5. Feet Part II

A/N This is pre-adoption and thus name change, hence Donnelly (which is Mark Wahlberg's mother's maiden name).

Feet Part II

She saw the doubtful look in his eyes as when she handed him the box, a brand new pair of skates. Compassion, perhaps, he had grown used to in her care, but _gifts_? After he had caused trouble?

He tightened the laces around his ankle, eyes glancing up from his foot to the boys skating around on the ice. Conversation and laughter filled the cool winter air.

"What if I don't wanna play hockey?" he said. Evelyn raised an eyebrow.

"You never miss a Red Wings game," she said, recalling more than one night where homework was done with lightning speed and minimal whining so he could catch the puck drop. "You begged me for that poster of John Ogrodnick."

She smiled. "And if I had a dollar for every time I saw you hitting a crushed up pop can with a broom-around my nice plates, mind you-I could have bought three pairs of those."

His eyes went wide. "You saw that?"

"Saw and heard," she said. "What was it… 'Donnelly's done it! He's won the Stanley Cup!'?"

He ducked his head and went back to tightening the laces. She wondered if he was blushing or if that was one of the many things he was 'too old' for since turning twelve, like Saturday morning cartoons and an eight thirty bedtime (and he pled his case for the latter well enough to push it back half an hour).

When he raised his head there wasn't a blush, but he was biting his lip and gazing apprehensively at the group mingling on the ice.


	6. Feet Part III

A/N I'm back, baby!

Feet Part III

It didn't take Evelyn long to catch on.

"They'll like you just fine, Bobby," she said. He looked at her with wide eyes again, probably wondering where she got those-how did he phrase it? "Freaky mind probe powers"?-from and if she knew about the candy bar he sneaked to bed last night (she did).

"I don't care if they like me or not," Bobby said, lifting his chin up as if to prove a point. Evelyn smiled. Bravado or not, Evelyn had never met a twelve year old boy who didn't, on some level, want acceptance from his peers.

The sharp sound of blades cutting through ice ended their conversation short. Evelyn looked up and stood to shake Jim's hand.

"Evelyn," he said, his gloves rough and cold against her hand. "Good to see you."

He nodded at Bobby. "Good to meet you, Bobby," he said. "Evelyn's told me you're quite the hockey fan. Do you know what position you want to play?"

Bobby didn't exactly glare at the man, but the look he gave wasn't friendly. She was proud; he was getting better at meeting new people.

"Defense," Bobby said at last and Evelyn smiled.

Bobby took to the ice, not once wobbling.

Evelyn watch them, the drills and the practice plays and her heart leaped into her throat when another boy crashed into Bobby, but smiled to herself when he only got up and resumed playing.

"Did you have fun?" she asked on their drive home.

"Yeah," he answered slowly, his cheeks and nose still red from the cold. "Do I get to go back?"

"I hope so," she said. "You're going to need an awful lot of practice to win a Stanley Cup."

He smiled wide, one of the few, genuine grins that he gave her.

"But..." she said, watching the smile fade a little as she reached in the back seat. She grabbed a stack of papers and handed them to him. "I think that it should be 'Mercer's done it,' don't you?"


End file.
